Microsoft is working around the clock to ship Windows 7 as soon as possible and grab the market lost due to Windows Vista rejection. They are nailing down the issues, patching holes and responding to the huge amount of beta feedback received from early Windows 7 beta adapters and testers. Today Microsoft’s Engineering Windows 7 blog published some of the changes that have been made in to Windows 7 between last month’s beta and RC.
Out of the 36 changes published by, here are the few interesting and important changes
Windows key + # shortcut enhancement
Windows 7 beta launches your first ten pinned task bar applications with Win + <number> keyboard shortcut. In Windows 7 RC apart from launching the application, if the application is already running it will bring it to the front and tapping the number again tabs through all the application’s open windows.
More room for taskbar to accommodate buttons
The amount of space available for task bar is for pinning programs has been increased. Now a 1280 x 1024 screen resolution will accommodate up to 20 large icons – four more than the beta.
Direct support for playing back .MOV files
No need to depend on QuickTime or third party players to view .MOV files. Windows 7 RC has built in support for playback of .MOV files.
Alt + Tab to trigger Aero Peek
Aero peek is now triggered with Alt + Tab keyboard shortcut. You can quickly flip through the open windows using Alt + Tab and if you pause a while keyboarding through windows, Aero Peek will appear.
Auto locking a machine without screensaver
No more it is required to set a screen saver to enable auto locking feature of Windows.
For the complete list of 36 changes, check this post on MSDN.